Planning & Transportation

As published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Saturday, February 17th:

Last Monday night's Town Council agenda pretty much summed up the amazing number of growth issues happening now in Chapel Hill. There are three developments on the table this month -- Lot 5 and Greenbridge downtown, the Residences at Chapel Hill North in the northwestern part of town, and East 54 on, well, East 54. There are also the issues caused by the large number of proposed developments -- re-evaluations of the comprehensive plan and tree protection ordinance, and a neighborhood conservation district in the Whitehead/Mason Farm area.

When all this stuff is going on, the Town Council and Planning Board (of which I am a member) get a lot of attention, as do the engaged citizens who speak out and make their feelings known.

The Herald reports that the Chapel Hill Town Council has voted to authorize the mayor to start discussing zoning for the 900-acre property in the middle of town that is slated to become UNC's satellite campus Carolina North. If it's true (as the article below states) that this process will be similar to how the Town developed the OI-4 zone that now applies to all of UNC's main campus then I am very afraid.

OI-4 was developed by a small negotiating committee including the Mayor and two Council members who met with the Chancellor and other UNC leaders in private meetings, and led to a process that allows UNC to push through through huge projects (the latest was over 1 million square feet) in just 4 months - a fraction of the time the town usually needs to review a simple Special Use Permit.

Mayor Kevin Foy has gotten the go-ahead from the Town Council to start talking with UNC Chancellor James Moeser about a vital aspect of Carolina North -- a new zoning district for the property where UNC wants to build its envisioned research campus.

Yesterday's Chapel Hill News looked at the rapid pace of new development in northwestern Chapel Hill, as originally blogged by Del Snow here on OP last November.

Developers have plans for at least 1,400 new housing units — more than half as many as in the entire town of Hillsborough — all within a 2.5-mile radius of the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Weaver Dairy Road.
[...]
Town traffic engineer Kumar Neppalli said the town already considers multiple projects whenever they're relevant to any one proposal, but the town cannot include projects that have not been officially proposed.